Chapter 18 Chapter Five: The First Case of Private School Education in China

A child who can fluently read all the English content in "China Daily" ("Daily China" newspaper) at the age of 8; a child who has read through "Four Books and Five Classics" at the age of 8; a child who has been alone at home at the age of 8 and has been taught by his father an 8-year-old child who was scrambled by the irreconcilable educational concepts of divorced parents; The first case of private school education in China caused by children. How twists and turns can a child's fate be?How many choices can a child have in the future?Is private school education better than China's mainstream education model?When these questions are still unsolved mysteries in most people's minds, the parents of 8-year-old Xiao Hongru launched a contest in order to let him take a learning path that they think is correct.Since June 2006, when Beijing Shijingshan District People's Court accepted the dispute over the change of custody relationship caused by challenging school education with modern private schools, the case went through the first and second instance procedures. On December 26, 2006, The court made the final judgment, and Xiao Hongru was still brought up by his father Hou Bo.

Complicated childhood, becoming a single-parent child at the age of two The 8-year-old Xiao Hongru is more mature than children of the same age, and his answers to questions are always beyond people's expectations.He said that he "disdains" cartoons, and his favorite TV programs are "National Treasure Files" and "Both Straits"; he doesn't like to play with children because they are too "childish", and only by communicating with adults can he "grow up" He has excellent reading ability in English and Chinese, and he has been able to read English novels and magazines by himself. He usually reads "Quan Han Fu", "Hundred Schools of Philosophy", "Reference News" and the like books and newspapers.In the humble room where Xiao Hongru lives with his father Hou Bo, there are more than 1,000 books of various kinds, half in Chinese and half in English. Now Xiao Hongru has read many.The most gratifying thing is that this 8-year-old child said that "I enjoy reading books."And all of this is the "achievement" of Xiao Hongru's father Hou Bo's private school education at home.

"I think that the slow and rigid education system in schools is not suitable for cultivating talents at all, which is why there is no Bill Gates in China." The person who said this was Xiao Hongru's father, Hou Bo, because he was dissatisfied with school education, For two and a half years, he provided one-on-one family education to his son who was under 6 years old at the time, hoping to train Xiao Hongru into a "genius boy". However, Xiao Hongru's mother and Hou Bo's ex-wife Wang Yu has a completely different view on this: "This is to educate the child in a closed state, and let the child face him all day long. How will the child integrate into the group in the future? Integration into society? A person with a sound personality is far more important than a lonely genius.” Wang Yu firmly opposes Hou Bo’s practice of closed family education for her children. She believes that her 8-year-old son cannot enter school to receive regular Compulsory education in China is entirely due to Hou Bo's will. In April 2006, Wang Yu submitted a complaint to the Beijing Shijingshan District People's Court, requesting the court to change himself as the guardian of his son Hou Hongru.

What kind of education made Xiao Hongru what he is today?What caused Xiao Hongru's parents to be so antagonistic? Behind Xiao Hongru is an incomplete family.His father, Hou Bo, was originally a doctor in the ENT Department of a hospital in Shijingshan District, Beijing. In 1997, he met Wang Yu, a reporter from a newspaper, through an advertisement for marriage.At first, the two parties felt quite satisfied, and they got married after 3 months of dating.Wang Yu said: "I was attracted by the intellectual temperament of the marriage advertisement. It didn't contain any vulgar things such as height and income. It was all about ideals and ambitions. Hou Bo's language and writing skills are very good. He likes to read, and in my eyes he feels a bit unreal. But after marriage, I found that he was unrealistic. He always had fantasies of 'saving China's education industry', and he was not good at communicating." Wang Yuzai was pregnant with Xiao Hongru When she was young, her relationship with Hou Bo deteriorated. In November 1998, she returned to her hometown alone and gave birth to Xiao Hongru.Due to the great difference in personality between the two parties, they could not continue to live together. In November 2000, Hou Bo and Wang Yu agreed to divorce, when Xiao Hongru had just turned two years old.Because Hou Bo has a Beijing household registration, Xiao Hongru's custody belongs to Hou Bo, but in fact the child has been living with Wang Yu, and the mother and son have lived together for more than two years.

One day in June 2004, Xiao Hongru's peaceful life was suddenly broken.On this day, Hou Bo suddenly appeared in the kindergarten and wanted to pick up Xiao Hongru.Because the custody of the child belongs to the father, Wang Yu, who rushed to the kindergarten after being notified by the teacher, could only watch helplessly as his son was taken away by Hou Bo.Since then, Xiao Hongru no longer has the concept of a mother in his heart.Wang Yu said: "Since the child was picked up by Hou Bo, she has never seen the child again. After two and a half years of closed education, Hou Bo refused to let me visit. The child has become hostile to me, and Xiao Hongru never called again. Mother." Such isolation made the child more and more like his father, becoming paranoid and conceited, and Wang Yu was determined to "take" the child back.

Gifted teenagers, unique children under unique education methods Two years after picking up the child, Hou Bo did not let Xiao Hongru go to school again, but left the child at home to educate himself, and made cultivating Xiao Hongru a talent as his greatest goal in life.In order to cultivate the child into a "genius", Hou Bo terminated the labor relationship with the hospital, and returned home to educate the child wholeheartedly. The daily lessons of the father and son are very regular.Due to the long study time at night, the two got up late and started studying after breakfast. There were almost no homework and exams. "When you're tired, you can watch TV for a while, exercise, and close your eyes to rest your mind." Hou Bo introduced. "Xiao Hongru first learned basic Chinese for half a year, the Four Books and Five Classics, the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, and elementary knowledge, and then modern things, a selection of essays by outstanding Chinese primary school students around the world. From there, we tried to learn characters through reading. There are several private school education in our country. With a history of thousands of years, modern school education is only more than 100 years old. Private school education is actually very good, and it teaches us how to behave..." On a calendar, Hou Bo recorded the child's learning progress, and he has learned 6,000 English words in about half a year .

Hou Bo's educational method originated from his own experience. Hou Bo said: "I graduated from university in 1990, and found that I had learned English for so many years, but I couldn't read "China Daily". I started to study how to read it. I understand English newspapers and original novels. I groped my own way, and I did it in 5 years, but now Xiao Hongru only took one and a half years to do it. At first, Xiao Hongru memorized 30 to 50 words a day, and I only Ask the child to work hard to memorize, and slowly he mastered it by himself, and began to read "British Fairy Tales", which are all in English and Chinese. I only taught him two lessons in the second volume of "New Concept English", and the child actually learned it by himself. Yes. After the age of 6 and a half, we began to recite TOEFL words..."

Compared with the school, Hou Bo believed that his private school education was successful, and the "results" of his two-year education seemed to confirm his expectations.Now, Xiao Hongru's English reading level is comparable to that of college students.Not only that, but the 8-year-old finished reading and .For the boring thing of learning, Xiao Hongru showed an unusual liking.Under the influence of his father, Xiao Hongru can take the initiative to recite dozens of words every day and study for more than 7 hours consciously.During the court session, Xiao Hongru impromptuly read a section of "China Daily" in front of all media reporters, and then translated it word by word.Some reporters even wanted to "difficult" him, and randomly found a paragraph in the newspaper for him to read. Unexpectedly, he read the original text without thinking and translated it on the spot, which amazed the reporters present.After the verdict of the second instance, Xiao Hongru made a gesture of victory surrounded by media reporters.Obviously, the 8-year-old child "enjoys" the feeling of being noticed in the crowd, and his father is also very excited about it. He is very proud of the "work" he has created for two years.

Xiao Hongru not only showed extraordinary English proficiency in several "surprise tests", but also showed mature thoughts and expressions in his conversation: "Are they (people of the same age) better than me in terms of brains? Ability, literature, Is it better than me professionally?" "I want to reach the level of a doctoral student, and it will be hard and difficult, and you will succeed." Idioms blurted out one after another, speaking very fast, with a bit of complacency and impatience on his face. In fact, Hou Bo has "reservations" on China's education system. He believes that school education is a standardized model of education, which means that one teacher must instill the same knowledge.The teacher's energy is extremely limited, and it is impossible to teach students in accordance with the characteristics of each child.The defect of this kind of education is that it suppresses children's creativity and cannot tap out each child's strengths and abilities, which is not only not conducive to children's learning, but also affects children's learning effects.Hou Bo believes that a parent faces his child and learns freely every day, which is incomparable to school education.Education can be realized in various ways. Now Xiao Hongru can read 100 pages of Chinese and English books very easily every day. It is absurd for such a child to go to elementary school again.

And Xiao Hongru's mother firmly believes that children must go to school and must receive mainstream Chinese school education.For this reason, Wang Yu sued Hou Bo, determined to win the custody of the child, and let Xiao Hongru enjoy the same life as children of the same age. Competing for the prodigy, a family of three staged a war of words in court In September 2006, this case related to Xiao Hongru's future fate was held in the Shijingshan District People's Court. The court was full of "gunpowder smell".After checking the identities of the plaintiff and the defendant, Xiao Hongru's parents expressed strong doubts about each other's identities. Harsh sentences appeared repeatedly, and the atmosphere in the courtroom was once deadlocked.Hou Bo pointed viciously at Wang Yu, saying that she was a laid-off worker from a factory in Henan, had no college degree, and was a liar in a job advertisement!And Wang Yu also cited Hou Bo's several "fleeing" as a medical staff during the "SARS" period and other emergencies.Apart from the mutual attacks between Wang Yu and Hou Bo, the most eye-catching thing was Xiao Hongru who was listening.He expressed strong dissatisfaction with any language his mother spoke, "She's not right!" This was the most he said at the time.

In court, Wang Yu and Hou Bo's statements and debates about who is more beneficial to raise children are also full of emotions. There are two main reasons for Wang Yu's request to change the child's custody relationship.First of all, she has a formal job and a stable income, while Hou Bo has no job so far, has lived on borrowed money for a long time, and has also received treatment for mental illness. All the above conditions show that it is extremely disadvantageous for him to raise his son.Secondly, children need to develop in an all-round and balanced way, and they should receive mainstream formal school education. Since Hou Bo forcibly took her son away from the kindergarten without her knowledge in June 2004, he has implemented the so-called "family education" by himself. Education", so far does not allow children to go to school.The new "Compulsory Education Law" implemented by the country in 2006 stipulates that children must receive compulsory education. Now that the child is 8 years old, he is still locked at home and does not have contact with the outside world. Xiao Hongru lacks a natural, smooth and healthy family and social life. Can it be cultivated to become a person who is meaningful to society?The stye in the corner of the child's eye has been growing for half a year and has not been effectively treated. The long-term treatment in the dirty environment endangers vision.The boy's hair was so long that it hung down to his shoulders. She hadn't seen Hou Bo cut the boy's hair until today's court session for two and a half years. Wang Yu thought it was a kind of physical and mental abuse to the boy.After Xiao Hongru was snatched away by his father, he never had any peers for two years, but was instilled by his father to hate his mother and society. Hou Bo did not have the moral level and conscience of a normal person.The legislative idea of ​​the law is to protect children, so that Xiao Hongru can feel the urgency of society and education. She strongly demands to change the child's custody relationship. Hou Bo made a tit-for-tat defense against this. He accused Wang Yu of often letting Xiao Hongru watch TV and inappropriately giving the child medicine, causing Xiao Hongru's eyes to be short-sighted, vocal cord problems, hearing loss in both ears, and serious psychological damage. Hurt, not only suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also had the bad habit of stealing things.In the kindergarten, everyone recognized him as the worst child, fighting and bullying children every day, killing small animals, and lying.Hou Bo believes that education can be achieved in a variety of ways, especially in today's era of diversity, and educating children at home does not violate the Compulsory Education Law.Since Xiao Hongru was picked up from the kindergarten in June 2004, the child has developed well, and his height and weight have changed. He has given up his bad habits and corrected his serious inferiority complex.Now Xiao Hongru is living happily, and has acquired a lot of knowledge in his happiness.The changes in the past three years are obvious to all. Now Xiao Hongru can read through and translate "China Daily" fluently, and has developed a good habit of reading hundreds of pages of Chinese and English books every day, and can also read original English novels with the help of a dictionary.Hou Bo thinks that education is successful and thoughtful, and that the children's morality, intelligence and physique develop in an all-round way, and the progress is greater and better than that in school education. This is an unprecedented achievement.In the past three years, Xiao Hongru has changed from a naughty boy to an extraordinary young man with wonderful performance. Hou Bo praised his son "this is a handsome, intelligent, and mature young heart", and all this is because he has an extraordinary father.At the same time, Hou Bo also issued a certificate stating that his father and younger brother expressed their "willingness to fully support Xiao Hongru's family", indicating that his source of income was the support from his immediate family members, which was enough to guarantee Xiao Hongru's normal study and life.In addition, Hou Bo issued a test result of Xiao Hongru at Yinhe Primary School in Shijingshan District, which showed that Xiao Hongru had reached the level of the third grade and could directly enter the fourth grade. When the judge asked Xiao Hongru for his own opinion, he easily said "you can give it a try" about the admission, but when asked who he would like to live with, he firmly said "I don't want to live with Wang Yu".In court, Xiao Hongru always called his mother by his first name, and never called his mother.Faced with his mother's call to take a photo with him, Xiao Hongru immediately refused and ran away quickly, his childish face was full of indifference and maturity beyond his age.Xiao Hongru once said loudly to his mother: "Stop pretending." Wang Yu covered his face and cried bitterly, but he said indifferently: "I think she is out of breath and betrayed her relatives." This sentence uses two idioms at once.At this time, Hou Bo came over and took his son's hand and said to the crying Wang Yu, "I am a good father that is rare in the world, and you are a bad mother that is rare in the world. I have raised a good son that is rare in the world. It is the pride of China." Talking and laughing at Confucianism, triggering a big discussion on educational models After several court sessions, on September 19, 2006, the People's Court of Shijingshan District, Beijing made a first-instance judgment on the custody dispute caused by "private school education". Hou Bo raised him.Afterwards, Wang Yu refused to accept the judgment of the first instance and filed an appeal. On December 26, 2006, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court made a final judgment on the case.The court held that the issue of child custody after divorce should be comprehensively considered in terms of benefiting the physical and mental health of the children, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the children, and taking into account the parenting abilities and conditions of both parents.Under Hou Bo's self-education since June 2004, Xiao Hongru's reading ability in English and Chinese is indeed superior to that of his peers, which shows that Hou Bo's education of Xiao Hongru has achieved some results in some aspects.At the same time, Xiao Hongru has a harmonious relationship with Hou Bo and is in good health. There is no evidence that his physical and mental health has been adversely affected, so it is more suitable for Xiao Hongru to live with Hou Bo. But the court also pointed out that compulsory education is a kind of education for underage students in moral education, intellectual education, physical education, aesthetic education, labor and social life guidance and adolescence.From the perspective of family education, parents' ability is limited after all, and they can provide children with guidance in one or several aspects.However, children's development should be comprehensive, based on systematic formal education, combined with targeted family education to make children grow up healthily. The "Compulsory Education Law of the People's Republic of China" is a stipulation that elevates quality education into a law, further clarifies the principles and objectives of compulsory education, and provides legal protection for the comprehensive implementation of education principles, improvement of the quality of education and teaching, and the promotion of the all-round development of children and adolescents.All children and teenagers who have the nationality of the People's Republic of China, live in China with their parents, and have reached the age of 6 must be sent to primary schools by their guardians to receive compulsory education, and they must ensure that the children and teenagers complete their compulsory education.Enabling their children of school age to attend compulsory education on time is not only the responsibility of parents to their children, but also a legal obligation to the country and society. It is stipulated in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China that citizens have the right and obligation to receive education. Concrete embodiment.Therefore, Hou Bo should solve the schooling problem of Xiao Hongru as soon as possible so that he can receive comprehensive compulsory education.Considering the actual living conditions of Xiao Hongru in the past two years, there is objectively a process of adapting to school education. In order to ensure his healthy growth, under the existing conditions, we should provide him with the necessary time and opportunities to make Xiao Hongru's life better. The situation and learning environment are gradually changed.Hou Bo agreed in court to send Xiao Hongru to school, and is in contact with relevant departments.In the judgment, the court specifically pointed out that Hou Bo should fulfill his promise within a reasonable time limit and send Xiao Hongru to school to receive compulsory education as soon as possible. In the end, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court upheld the judgment of the original court and rejected the claim of his mother Wang Yu, and Xiao Hongru was still raised by his father Hou Bo.According to the court's judgment, Xiao Hongru will start a new life with a schoolbag on his back like other children of the same age in the near future. Since Beijing Shijingshan District People's Court accepted this "China's first private school education case", there have been strong reactions from all walks of life, and the mass media have different opinions.Some people think that as long as it is suitable for children's learning methods, it should be accepted. After all, everyone has different qualifications. If children's learning must be uniformly applied to a unified model, what we provide will always be an irreplaceable assembly line education. This kind of education must be It will suppress the child's aptitude and is not conducive to the child's growth.Since Xiao Hongru can study happily and consciously at home, he should admit the rationality of private school education to a certain extent. Others believe that private school education cannot comprehensively improve children's cognitive level in terms of morality, intelligence, physique, beauty, and labor.Although this kind of private school education is one-on-one, since Xiao Hongru's father is not a person who specializes in education, it is not comprehensive for him to decide the child's education method based on his own experience and subjective judgment.Children should improve their own literacy in social groups and not close their communication with the outside world.People always want to return to society and need to learn how to communicate and cooperate with other individuals in society.Xiao Hongru's English and Chinese achievements are very remarkable, but he should also pay attention to the study of other subjects and not be biased.In this regard, mainstream school education has more advantages. It can provide Xiaohongru with more space to learn more and richer knowledge, and this kind of education is also comprehensive, and it is an education method generally recognized by the public. When discussing the case, a netizen wrote this message: "School is not everything, but dad alone is absolutely impossible." Which one is more suitable for children's development, "mainstream education" or "private school education" ?No one can predict the future.Thousands of years of private school education is not uncommon nowadays. The son of "Fairy Tale King" Zheng Yuanjie does not need to go to school, the "prodigy" Zhang Xinyang who was admitted to university at the age of 10, and the 14-year-old "Private School Girl" Xin Yuntian, "No. 1 in the country" The first full-time private school "Mengmutang" is inheriting the ancient educational model of "private school" in different ways.Under the two-year private school education, Xiao Hongru has achieved results beyond his peers, but at the same time he has lost many opportunities to contact the outside world.Although mainstream education cannot create "geniuses" in a short period of time, it can create an atmosphere in which children communicate and learn from each other.Because Xiao Hongru is hostile to his mother Wang Yu, considering that if he is forcibly handed over to his mother to raise him against his will, the conflict between mother and child may be further intensified, which is not conducive to the child's physical and mental development.After weighing the interests of all parties, the court held that it was appropriate for the child to continue to be raised by the father, but the premise was that Hou Bo would send Xiao Hongru to school.The court hopes that through this method, children can understand the society and gradually develop the ability to judge right from wrong. It is hoped that this kind of good intentions can be perceived by the society. Every handicapped family has its misfortunes. Children in single-parent families will bear more external pressure than children of the same age, and they will face more confusion and conflicts.In life, Xiao Hongru hated his mother, and he didn't want to mention the word "mother". Whenever he mentioned it, he always sneered and called her by her name.In court, facing the mother's plea for a group photo, the child just refused blindly, without giving the mother any chance to get close to him.He always looks up to his father, thinking that his father is an unparalleled hero.The age that should have been carefree, but loaded with too many meanings.The turmoil between parents should stay within their own limits in moderation, and they should not instill any paranoid thoughts in their children.The child is innocent, he cannot and should not bear the pain of this transfer.How important childhood is to a child, it is the foundational stage of personal personality.In the competition among adults, children should not be used as bargaining chips. The weak hearts of children cannot bear the world of adults.Maybe Hou Bo's education of Xiao Hongru could cultivate him into a "genius", but this kind of paranoid education cannot shape a sound and rational personality.Xiao Hongru, who just turned 8 years old, was asked to choose between his parents. He was too weak to withstand any storms from the outside world.It is what people expect to reduce the harm to him and weaken the shadow caused by the kindness and resentment between his parents. "Talk and laugh with ru, no contacts STOMATOLOGY".It is the wish of every parent to expect their children to make great achievements, and Hou Bo must also hope that Xiao Hongru can grow up to be an adult.I don’t know how Xiao Hongru, who has grown up, will think about the current disputes about him after a few years. Maybe we have no way of knowing, but don’t let children become victims of family struggles, it is the voice of each of us today . Xiao Hongru once talked about his ideal to reporters. He said: "I will have my own sky, governed by myself, and fly freely." This sentence is enough to show that the child has lived through the divorce and endless disputes of his parents. He matured early, and left the innate family affection prematurely, and the innocence that should belong to him. We only have a sigh and apprehensive blessings: healthy growth, happy life, Xiao Hongru!